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July 25, 2003
The Boss' butt
Omahattanite writes from New York:From Montclair to Cherry Hill, "the city" means only one thing, and it's not Trenton. Culturally, Manhattan wields it over New Jersey, a fact that even Kevin Smith would reluctantly admit. New Jerseyites flock here for museums, shopping, theater, restaurants, and all the rest. But when it comes to down-home rock and roll, the Apple has nothing on the Meadowlands right this moment. Bruce Springsteen is midway through a week's worth of sold-out shows at Giants Stadium--the first time in Ticketmaster history that a performer has sold out tickets for seven consecutive stadium dates in a single day. Sitting in a huge football stadium in East Rutherford, watching one of its local heroes do good, all I could think was, thank God for Jersey.
Even the threat of rain (and an eventual downpour) couldn't dampen the spirits of fans at last Friday's show. Tailgaters turned the parking lot at Giants Stadium into a huge concrete party, complete with barbeques, chairs, tables, and thousands of stereos all blasting the same thing--the Boss, of course. The talk centered on set-list possibilities. Would he play "Rosalita"? (Yes.) What bonus songs might he do? ("Who'll Stop the Rain" opened this waterlogged show, and the first encore was a Detroit medley featuring special guest Garland Jeffreys.) Did he still have the cutest butt in the music business? (O.K., maybe that was confined to the ladies in my group--but he does.)
Until you've seen 50,000 fans screaming "Bruuuuuuuuuuce" as one, you haven't seen loyalty. As a naïve college freshman, I turned to my then-boyfriend and asked "Why are they booing him?" "They aren't saying boooooooooo," he responded kindly. "They're saying Bruuuuuuuuuuce." Now it's 10 years later, and I have fully succumbed to Bossmania. And I'm not the only one--the stadium was full of those in my generation, as well as many a decade younger, or two (or three) decades older. I always seem to be behind the times musically--I never did get Nirvana's appeal, and currently I'm not a huge fan of Coldplay--but on Friday night in Giants Stadium, that didn't matter one bit.
Posted July 25, 2003 12:03 PM
